Had a great day today. Have been contemplating adding a new service to the Douglas Environmental Solutions offerings and took today to network. I discussed the idea with some colleagues and had a few "coffee meetings" to get some feedback. I often get so caught up in something like this that grabs my attention that it really helps to have an impartial 3rd party to bounce the ideas off of.
Today started with the Chamber of Commerce's weekly Breakfast Network. This week's installment was the last meeting for the year, so I wanted to make sure I could be there to say all my "Merry Christmas's" to everyone - this late in the month, I'm unlikely to see these friends and colleagues again until 2010. I bumped into a few people who I was specifically interested in talking to as they've been through the startup phases of product launches before and I wanted to see if they were thinking along the same lines I was.
Seems I'm not too far off the mark with this, and confirmed it with a "coffee meeting" with Mark Meincke, a local realtor with Remax. We intended to have a 20 minute chat about it, but instead talked for about two hours about all the potential ways this new spin-off for Douglas Environmental could go.
As our coffee meeting ended up a lot closer to noon than I anticipated, Mark and I headed over to Fusedlogic for their Christmas/Anniversary Open House - it was a good mixer, as well as giving the chance to listen to Walter Schwabe, their CEO, give a primer on Social Media "2.0" - a great interactive discussion about ways to leverage the Internet to build relationships, versus just using it for blatant marketing purposes.
Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Blogging, Twitter and numerous other technologies were discussed. It was a very captivating discussion as Walter used examples from the crowd - picking out their websites, discussing strategies relevant to each attendee's specific field. All-in-all, a great afternoon (even better with snacks, coffees and Christmas Spirits being served!)
Got back to the office in time to catch up on emails and correspondance. Found out we picked up a $300 vet bill and potentially $2000 more coming in a month or two... Pets are great! :( I guess that's it - we'll call that a day. Tomorrow is Friday, I have the morning to finish up paperwork, get back to a few clients and end the day testing water for a colleague I have now bumped into 3 out of 4 days this week!
